106 NOTES ON BEAVEKS. 



The sloping face of the dam was composed of clay and stones, the 

 original material of the present ponds. This clay they puddle with 

 their feet, make into balls, and pile in a heap in the middle of the 

 pool until required. In carrying it through the water they hold it 

 between the fore paws and the chin, swimming with the tail and webbed 

 hind feet. If alarmed, or when in the act of diving, they strike the 

 water with their tails, and thus occasion a loud report. 



Their house, which is near the right bank, looking down stream, 

 is yft. high (5 of which are above water), 10ft. long, and 8ft. wide, 

 oval in shape, and difticult, in spite of its size, to recognise at fii'st, 

 owing to their having nearh- covered it with growing turf, boughs and 

 stems of fern, the leaves of which they had eaten. Along the top was 

 a backbone of boughs left open as a ventilator, and through which heat 

 was perceptibly rising from the chamber within. Close to the water on 

 the upper side was a narrow terrace, on which Black said the tenants 

 liked to sun themselves when all was quiet. 



My friend climbed on the top of the house, to the consternation of 

 the inmates, who bolted in all directions, their hidden tracks being 

 marked by lines of rising bubbles. In stepping back to land he put his 

 foot on a tree stump, and instantly fell all his length. We found he 

 had gone through to the land chamber of the house. Black was horrified, 

 I was delighted, and at once commenced an inspection. 



This chamber was as big as a wheel-barrow, and contained two 

 beds of wood shavings like spills (a few of which I brought away), 

 which are prepared by the beavers from the small boughs on the bark 

 of which they have fed. The house side of this chamber had been 

 built of boughs and sods, the projecting ends of the branches being 

 neatly dressed off, and the stump of the tree had been hollowed until 

 only a thin shell remained, which accounted for its having given 

 way so unexpectedly. 



In the centre of the pool they collect their winter store of boughs, 

 which, when complete, stands high out of the water, and is used from 

 below. 



Bound the sides of the pool they have made several burrows, or 

 " washes,'' or " hovels," as they are variously called, which penetrate 

 from 20 to 30 feet into the bank, where they rise above water-level and 

 form a small chamber, in the top of which an air hole, stuffed full of 

 sticks, is made from the inside for ventilation but not for egress. 

 Between the submerged entrances to these holes, and the equally 

 subaqueous approaches to the house (one being on the upper and the 

 other on its lower side), they have cut grooved channels in the bottom 

 of the pool, which conduct them safely when diving from one to the 

 other. Upon the bank they have numerous runs terminating in shallow 

 water, the sides of which are marked by the debris of ferns and twigs. 



Their working hours are between 7 o'clock at night and 7 o'clock in 

 the morning. One beaver is always on duty at each dam, and what- 

 ever they do is achieved with great rapidity. Black thinks they breed 

 in January, but all authorities are against this opinion, which is 



